The NAP is Crap

Some Free Staters are miffed about SB 105, a bill that would add electronic nicotine delivery systems (e-cigarettes) to the other tobacco products that are included in the indoor smoking act. The indoor smoking act prohibits smoking in enclosed workplaces or public places. 

When one is miffed about proposed legislation, one often begins by setting up an events page on Facebook. Here's the one set up by the Free Staters miffed about SB 105:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1391474131160891

This is activism - organizing people in opposition to fight legislation that they object to. I wouldn't dream of criticizing these folks for taking action. 

Nope, what I find objectionable is a conversation on the event page. It begins with the use of the phrase "open season." Open season refers to the time when it is legal to hunt and kill a particular species. 

The activists I interact with don't make casual comments about shooting people they disagree with. 

Free Staters insist loudly and often that they adhere to something called the non-aggression principle. (NAP)  There's plenty of documentation that what they claim does not correspond to their actions. This is yet another instance. 

The open season post was made on February 2. Charlie McFreman is a Free Stater, and therefore one assumes he's an adherent of the NAP. It seems he doesn't think that suggesting "open season" on some of his fellow humans is inappropriate or needlessly provocative. He and his fellow Free Staters have had nearly a month to tell John Badeau that suggesting "busy bodies" might get shot is not only inappropriate, but it's aggressive -  in direct opposition to the non-aggression principle. 

No one has said a word. 

Cantwell Puts on His Cop Killing Cheerleader Uniform - Again

You remember Chris Cantwell. He's the guy who was kicked out of the Free State Project around this time last year. Cantwell was getting loud about how cops should be killed, and poor Carla Gericke, the president of the Free State Project was busy shrieking about how bad it was that the Concord Police Dept. considered the possibility that Free Staters could be potential domestic terrorists. The last thing Carla needed was for that to be proven true by Chris Cantwell, so he was ousted. 

Since then, he's aired his views on how cops should die on a number of occasions. He blamed  Brentwood Police Officer Steve Arkell for his own death. Officer Arkell was killed in the line of duty. When Justin Bourque went on a RCMP  killing spree in New Brunswick, Cantwell cheered him on, as he applauded Jerad and Amanda Miller for killing cops in Las Vegas. This led to him getting kicked off CopBlock, but that was purely cosmetic. CopBlock wants to keep their memes popular amongst "the slaves." 

Cantwell may have been kicked out of the FSP in a big public attempt to whitewash their public image, but it was all for show.  Cantwell lives across the street from the Church of the Free Load in Keene. Free Keene cult leader Ian Bernard begged Cantwell to come back to Keene.

He's still cheering on murder, as you can see here at his latest blog diatribe: Chris Cantwell - PA Troopers Got Off Easy:

Every traffic stop he engaged in was a death threat. Every arrest a kidnapping. Every fine a theft. He was paid through taxation, a global system of coercion that presently enslaves the entire human race. He was an active participant and willing co-conspirator in the system of oppression that makes wars possible. Should Dickson have pulled you over on the highway, and you attempted to evade him, he would use whatever level of force was necessary to stop you, up to and including running your car off the road and shooting you in the face, with a gun you were forced to pay for.

And

If his death prevented a single traffic stop, then his killer is a hero. If it saved the taxpayers of Pennsylvania a single penny, then his killer is a freer of slaves. If it makes one young adult think twice about becoming a cop, then his killer saved an immeasurable number of people from theft, assault, imprisonment, and death.

Our Free Stater wannabe overlords love to natter on about how they're all about peace and love, and claim adherence to something they call the non-aggression principle. 

It's all a bunch of road apples. Scratch that facade of peace and love and what you get is far, far beyond the mainstream. 



Update - it seems Cantwell has taken a cult name.

From his Facebook page:

While we're on the topic of Free Staters....

NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn :

Horn said the group’s philosophy is “something that’s right in line with the Republican Party.”   

"For the most part," explained Horn, "the Free State Project has been very much a movement with character that I think has probably been a positive thing in our state.”

Is cop killing right in line with the GOP philosophy, Jennifer? 

Jennifer Horn: REALLY?

The FreeLoad State Project loves to talk about their adherence to something called the NonAggression Principle. Essentially that means that they shouldn't have to pay taxes, BUT, they do have the right to shoot you if you're pissing them off. And for people who claim to be non-aggressive, they sure do like the idea of shooting people, especially cops: 

Carl Drega, Folk Hero to Free Staters

Free State Project Excommunicates Participant ~ Miscellany Blue

Free State Project Debate: When Should You Shoot a Cop? ~ Miscellany Blue

With all of this coming to light, I can't help but wonder how NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn is feeling about the comments she made a while back:

Horn said the group’s philosophy is “something that’s right in line with the Republican Party.”   

"For the most part," explained Horn, "the Free State Project has been very much a movement with character that I think has probably been a positive thing in our state.”

Miscellany Blue again, thank you Tuck!

A movement with character, eh Jennifer? The group's philosophy is "right in line with the Republican Party?" 

Really, Jennifer? 

The Non-Aggression Principle

(Carla Gericke, President of the Free State Project, speaking in front of Concord City Hall last night before the City Council Meeting began.)

The Non-Agression Principle (NAP) is what members of the Free State Project always point to as an attempt to illustrate to us that they are peaceful, nonviolent individuals. They are adherents of this principle, therefore they come in peace. That they are armed and claiming peaceful intent isn't supposed to occur to us, because hey, they're non-violent! They say so!

This is from the NAP wiki:
The non-aggression principle (NAP)—also called the non-aggression axiom, the zero aggression principle (ZAP), the anti-coercion principle, or the non-initiation of force—is a moral stance which asserts thataggression is inherently illegitimate. NAP and property rights are closely linked, since what aggression is depends on what a person's rights are.^[1] Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately-owned property of another. Specifically, any unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner's free will and interfere with his right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership.

Supporters of the NAP often appeal to it in order to explain the immorality of theft, vandalism, assault, and fraud. In contrast to nonviolence, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others.^[2] Many supporters argue that NAP opposes such policies as victimless crime laws, taxation, and military drafts. NAP is the foundation of most present-day libertarian philosophies.

It's not exactly clearly defined. And there's a huge component missing from it - verbal aggression. The Free Staters are very verbally aggressive.  

Last night, Free State President Carla Gericke spoke to the Concord City Council, concerning the poor FSP's wounded feelings about being named as potential domestic terrorists in a grant application by the Concord PD. The Concord PD is trying to get an armored vehicle. The folks turning out to that meeting last night were supposed to be there to protest the militarization of police and the wasteful spending by the Dept. of Homeland Security, but Carla and the Free Staters managed to turn the whole issue into being about them. 

From my notes:

Ms. Gericke was allowed to speak first. She started off by saying that the Free Staters are productive citizens moving here to be part of the shared values of the state. By then she was warmed up, and began to get loud. I hate the word shrill as an adjective because it's so often applied unfairly to women, but she was shrill.  She accused the police chief of perjury. "We're good people. I volunteer for Concord Reads at the Concord Library, and I am deeply offended by this misleading, fraudulent, secret application!" She bellowed that as President of the FSP, she has called for the retraction of this grant and a letter of apology! The people in that room didn't respect her enough to respond to her! And here's where she reached operatic heights: "I will be filing a complaint with the Dept. of Homeland Security!" (An agency of the very gubmint she claims disdain for) She called for the public resignation of all of the people involved with this application. When people make false statements, the penalty is PRISON. 

She was screaming by the end of her comments. She was red faced and angry when she left the room. 

If her intent was to show the City of Concord that the Free Staters are peaceful and nonaggressive, Carla failed in an epic manner.